All That Matters

[UCanDream]

Hey everybody!

This piece was done strictly on the Oasys and the XS7 (nothing else, I promise). A TC-Electronics was used in finalization and I tweaked EQ using my crusty little Alesis 31 band. It's named "All That Matters."

http://www.supload.com/listen?s=ihn6jZ

It will be on my upcoming CD entitled "U Can Dream"....you know, the CD that I have been saying will be out in 2-3 weeks for about 10 or 12 months now, heh! I am hoping that my projected release date comes before I pass away of natural causes....lol. Actually, it will be done in about 2 or 3 weeks. You do believe me, yes? Hey, I'm a keyboard dude...not a sound engineer! This has taken me a while! Speaking of "a while", one of the cuts on the CD was written and copyrighted in 1979. I was in 9th grade back then! And I actually have an old cassette recording of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra Choir singing that particular song in 4 part harmony. That version, of course, will not be on the CD....just the instrumental.

Anyhoo, hope you all are cranking out the cool tunes with your mighty "O" and whatever else you got.


Peace,
UCanDream

[jgsidak]

Really fine work. The composition shows a lot of restraint and perspective. It reminds me a bit of David Foster. I like the sound of the piano. Did you do anything special with the EQ, etc.?

[SCHWEATS]

Very nicely done !

< Hey, I'm a keyboard dude...not a sound engineer! >

I know exactly how you feel !

In seeking help to broaden my understanding of engineering
I found these 2 books quite valuable. Maybe you might also…
(unless , of course, you are already familiar with each)

The Mixing Engineer's Handbook 2nd edition
by Bobby Owsinski

Mixing Audio by Roey Izhaki

Try amazon.com for each HTH - Schweats

[Akos Janca]

Dear David,

This is a wonderful piece. I have listened it in the morning, I think it's a good moment for this kind of music. I like it very much, it transmits gentle and tender emotions and speaks to us without words in the universal language of music.

Thank you.

[nitecrawler]

Nice piece David. You really have a lot going on in this work. Now I can tell why its been taking you so long, if all the tunes on your new CD are this intricate. And I thought there was no talent down in Canon City! Shows what I know. Thanks for sharing.

nitecrawler (from up north)

[peter m. mahr]

[quote]Hey everybody! ....you know, the CD that I have been saying will be out in 2-3 weeks for about 10 or 12 months now[/quote]

Agree to nitecrawler's posting. The quality of your track is a good excuse for the delay!

blogasys

[Arend Groot]

Very nice and warm song. I like especially the guitars and bass. But it fits all together.

[Mike Conway]

Very well done! Nice attention to the detail of the playing and the subtety of the sound.

[UCanDream]

Hi.

Wow, thanks for the encouraging comments you guys!! I thought this forum might be an appropriate place to test the waters since both good and constructive criticism is offered pretty generously. I thought I would be in for a real a$$ beating by you guys that know how to REALLY mix and master. On the keys, I feel kind of capable (if not largely unskilled since I have no musical background to speak of except for 6 months of lessons when I was 12.) On the mixing and engineering side I feel like I'm in Kindergarten!! LOL. But.... I KNOW what sound I am looking for and even though it takes me 10X as long to get there, I do eventually manage to get close to what I want.

A lot of the CD will have this sort of music on it. I'm frantic about details and if the instrument I am trying to replicate can't be played like I'm playing it then I keep working until I get it right. A few days ago I watched a guy on YouTube play a guitar sound on a synth. It was a VERY good sounding guitar.....but he had his foot on the sustain pedal and there were 4 notes, then 5 , then 8 , then 12.... and on and on and on...and I thought, "Does he not understand that a guitar would have to have a 18" wide neck to sound all of those notes at once?" LOL! I also stumbled on some other helpful info...certain brass instruments cannot transpose, e.g., french horn, etc. (Yeah, yeah, that might be a no-brainer to some of you guys but I had no clue!) But knowing that NOW doesn't mean I'm gonna go back and fix that sort of thing. However, I have gone back and redone my guitars, refined some strings, eliminated anything that reeked of the "80's" (lol). Of course, I'm saying all this because a lot of the CD content was composed in the late 80's and early to mid 90's. (One song- as I mentioned before- even being written in 1979.)

One song in particular that I am thinking of throwing on that Supload.com site was one I wrote in 1984. When I got my first Ensoniq VFX-SD about 5 years later I did an orchestrated version of it. A close friend of mine who was working on some lyrics for it died late that year and I abandoned the song alone after that, even though it was almost entirely completed. In the last few months I went back to it and decided to finish it the way I imagined it when I wrote it back in '84. Anyone interested in hearing lead guitars from the Motif XS and the M3 might be interested in this tune. It's called "Sage." I used the might Oasys, the XS7 and the M3 to reconstruct the song in it's entirety with one exception: The sax was done from my EX5. In the early days of this song I would have considered it primarily a piano song....now....I can't say for sure. It's strong in sax and guitar as well. You will all recognize the Oasys Piano. I modified it some to cater to the song but it is unmistakably Mr. Oasys!! At about the 5 minute mark I re-wrote the ending. There is a story that will be detailed in the CD insert that explains. Enough said.

Thanks sincerely for the positive feedback. I certainly welcome any criticism.....well, if it's not personally insulting. lol

Keep rockin' boys and gurls!!


Kind regards,
David

[UCanDream]

Oopsie....

....I forgot to reply to some specific inquiries. Sorry, lol, here goes:

To jgsidak: Anything special with EQ'ing, etc.? Yes actually. I don't know if my approach is right or wrong but what I did was strengthen (boost) the EQ bands of the instruments I wanted to emphisize. I know that sounds odd....after all, the Piano covers a HUGE path on the EQ...well, so does the guitar. But I did some research as to where the strongest frequencies in those instruments reside and adjusted accordingly. I also found that certain frequencies (say in electric guitars, though- there are no EL guitars in "All That Matters") could be shrill/undesirable. (These are EQ'ing principles that I am trying to apply.) So I dropped those slightly. All the while I am being careful not to create drops and spikes on my EQ curve. Dude, it took a LOT of dang time! I toyed a lot with the flute and oboe frequencies but honestly, they weren't much of a challenge to make sound decent. Can you tell I used a breath controller on the flute? (hehehe, yeah..."cheater", I know.) My use of the Finalizer was experimental for a while there but I have gotten WAY away from using "factory programming." The finalizer adds a tremendous amount of presence to my recordings. I keep the Limiting and Compression to a bare minimum. The specific settings are specific to each piece. It is so worth the money! I got a brand new one off eBay for $1000, less than 1/2 the retail.

To SCHWEATS: Wow man!! Thank you!! I have looked for many months for books that might help me. Geez, have you seen how dang MANY there are out there? I just gave up!! What an idiot I am! I should have asked you guys in here for a recomendation. One question: It looks like at least one of these was translated to English. Any holes in the translation that you have seen?

To everyone else, again thanks. Hey nightcrawler... I forgot you were so close! I oughta have you down for the day just to kick it in the studio. I'll even feed ya...lol! And yeah, I'm not so sure about the talent thing... but I am having fun!

Peace,
David

[Drunky]

Compliments David.
I really appreciated it a lot. Especially how you mix the layers. Go ahead, you find your way.

[iD4rK]

Sounds really nice, congratz!

Some minor mistakes tho, for example from part 2:02 to 2:07 it sounds wierd, the combination of tones does not match 100%. If you hear this part a couple of times you might notice.

But well just ignore me, I'm being to perfectionist. I don't think anyone noticed or will notice. Maybe it's just me, I'm holiday so I don't have my Adam's here to hear it correctly.

Cheers

[Akos Janca]

... I'm frantic about details and if the instrument I am trying to replicate can't be played like I'm playing it then I keep working until I get it right. ...

I like this attitude. Every instrument has its own capabilities (range, tuning, polyphony, etc.) and I think generally it's better to take care of it when imitating them with a keyboard instrument. (E.g. I can tell it's very annoying when a composer, usually too young, comes to a recording session with a real orchestra bringing scores that he composed then printed out with his computer at home. Certainly without enough knowledge about what can be played by which instrument...) Fortunately you are the opposite - this piece could be played by the real instruments. (I mean the imitated ones, 'cause OASYS is a Real Instrument itself. )

... On the keys, I feel kind of capable (if not largely unskilled since I have no musical background to speak of except for 6 months of lessons when I was 12.) On the mixing and engineering side I feel like I'm in Kindergarten!! LOL. ...

... And yeah, I'm not so sure about the talent thing...

Considering your education and hearing your song you can be absolutely 100% sure! Please notify us when the CD is ready. Thanks.

[UCanDream]

Hi guys.

Thanks again for the comments.

To Drunky: Yeah, I like that...."Go ahead, you find your way." That's cool! Even if it's a haphazard shot in the dark I guess that's what I'm doing. Thanks much buddy.

To iD4rK: No, I'm not about to ignore you! LOL. You have an incredibly accute aural perception. I will have to go back to the individual instrument tracks to be sure that I did not inadvertently create two conflicting chords inside of that particular chord. However, my intent was to bring emphasis to the need for a resolution by creating dissonance in addition to the suspension of the major 4th. Perhaps I screwed it up...I definitely will look at those tracks. I also know my understanding of some music theory may be a little skewd. In any event, I really appreciate your noting this. I may have actually executed this chord incorrectly, especially in the mix as I layered other instruments. Can you tell me what other areas you may have noted oddities? LOL, now I'm all paranoid. Looks like the CD wont be released until late Fall.......In The Year 2525! lol

To Akos: Thanks for your kind words. I can tell you have a deep appreciation for music! You are so right about the "young composer." Your take on the scenario you presented was dead on right and cracked me up at the same time. Yeah, " OASYS is a Real Instrument itself." You got that right! Who is out there that can tell we are all playing synths and not the REAL thing(s)? That's right baby! Cuz Oasys IS the real thing! I know I am not an expert, but I have worked for many years at my articulation when reproducing "other" instruments and I think that paying attention to that sort of detail REALLY pays off! One of the goals I have had on this CD project is that I want to be sure that my audience cannot tell if they are hearing a real piano or a synth (that's a piece of cake with the Oasys), a real sax or fake, real flute or not, real guitar or keyboard? Current technology makes those sounds as real as they may ever be so it then becomes the task of the artist to make proper application to playing techniques. My personal skills are certainly not top notch but I am paying attention to that sort of stuff. Man, look at guys like Jordan Rudess and Stephen Kay. They are positively masters at what they are doing! I could watch Jorday play all day....and Stephen's music, I could listen to his stuff constantly and wouldn't get tired of it. Those guys amaze me. I feel like a musical toddler when I see talent and skill like that. Hey Akos, for sure-when the CD is available I will give the forum a heads up. Thanks again for your encouragement. It means a lot.

I'll post one more song today or tomorrow.


Kind regards,
David aka UCanDream

[iD4rK]

Thanks, don't worry. It happens to me too, its better if you have a little group of friends that make music so they can tell opinions and people hear stuff that oneself does not until told.

Glad I found some AKG's 141 STUDIO here in Switzerland, the father of my girlfriend makes music as well. He is quite known in classical music concerts here. Glad he had this ones to lent me.

It's good to have a nice stereo separation, but you should not have intruments completely on one side ONLY, it should be audible on L and R sides. On some parts with these headphones I thought one of my ears was deth. Specially when only one instrument is playing I think it should be centered.

Well the list is the following with the instrument that is corrupting the harmony:
01:19 - 01:26 (trumpet)
01:29 - 01:36 (contrabass/trombone)
01:55 - 02:00 (strings)
02:02 - 02:08 (flute / strings)

I think that was it all, but to be more accurate I should hear this song on my Adam Audio A7 Monitors at home (still in switzerland till 06 of abril).

Greets